Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.

September 1908. Grafton, West Virginia. "Tipple Boy and Drivers. Maryland Coal Co. mine near Sand Lick. Boy with mule was afraid at first to be in the picture; another boy said he feared we might make him go to school." View full size. Photograph and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine.

May 30, 1864. "Port Royal, Virginia. The Rappahannock River front during the evacuation." Photograph from the main Eastern theater of war, Grant's Wilderness Campaign. Wet plate negative by Timothy O'Sullivan. View full size.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.